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Chief Mark Saunders says abolishing ‘carding’ would lead to more crime

New top cop will keep it, but take the “random” out of police practice, he tells African Canadian Summit.

New Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders addressed the 2nd African Canadian Summit on Wednesday, his fourth day in the role. Though praised for his accomplishments, Saunders also found himself in the hot seat, especially on the issue of carding. (Rick Madonik / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

New Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders spoke a lot about words in his first public appearance as top cop Wednesday. You can take him on his, he assured, but he wants Toronto to know he’s ultimately going to be about action.

Just four days into the job, the newly minted top cop expanded, if marginally, on his policing plan in Toronto for those gathered at the Second African Canadian Summit, a crowd that proved both welcoming and wary of the city’s first black chief.

Though hailed for the historic achievement, Saunders was grilled on the issue of racial bias in policing and “carding” — stopping and documenting members of the public not suspected of a crime, a practice that disproportionately affects young black men.

In comments to reporters after very brief remarks in the summit, Saunders defended carding as being “very important” in the context of gathering vital intelligence to eliminate Toronto’s street gang culture, and said ending the controversial practice was not the way forward.

“Abolishing it is not the way in which we are going to say ‘everything is going to be better,’” Saunders said. “If we remove the ability of our officers to engage with the community, all I can tell you is that will put us in a situation where there will be an increase of crime.”

But what Saunders is open to abolishing, he said, was “random” stops by police, saying that improved training was among the changes he would make to ensure officers “know what they’re doing and why they’re doing it.”

“That’s where the social cost comes in. If you truly don’t know what you’re doing and why you’re in that environment, and you’re recording it, then we need to sit down and fix that. ‘Random’ is not a word we should be using in the policing lexicon,” he said.

Earlier, Saunders acknowledged misspeaking during a news conference last week, when he referred to the adverse consequences of the police practice of carding as “collateral damage.”

“The proper term should be the social cost,” Saunders said. “The social cost in which members of the community do not feel that they are being treated with dignity and respect.”

The new chief was also challenged on another of his terms — “community safety,” which he has frequently said cannot be compromised in the context of carding.

“One of the things we’ve found is the word ‘community safety’ is a code word for over-policing,” said Margaret Parsons, executive director of the African Canadian Legal Clinic. “Our community has been over-policed to death, and it’s time for change and you are the face of change.”

Saunders responded by saying he would not be caught in “word play,” and said the focus instead needs to be on police understanding their role in the community.

“If we wordsmith this to death, here we are playing semantics, I’m not interested in that,” he said afterwards. “I’m interested in good action.”

Parsons was undeterred by the fact that the new chief said abolishing carding would not fix the problem.

“That doesn’t mean we’re going to stop pushing for that, we don’t see what the value is of carding. We have seen the impact of carding and how it impacts on our community,” she said in an interview.

Mayor John Tory, speaking after Saunders, defended the Toronto Police Services Board’s recent decision to pass a carding policy that many criticized as “watered down” and lacking necessary civil rights safeguards. That new policy, passed two weeks ago, did not include restrictions on carding created in a policy passed by the board a year ago, including the duty of officers to inform individuals of their right to leave.

Tory said the new policy is better than the complete lack of oversight that had resulted from an impasse between the board and then-chief Blair over developing procedures to implement the 2014 guidelines. He reiterated a previous commitment to reviewing the new policy in six months. If necessary, Tory said, the board could return to the 2014 policy as a “framework.”

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